Horace Campbell is Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University. His recent book is Global NATO and the Catastrophic Failure in Libya. He is author of: Rasta and Resistance From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney; Reclaiming Zimbabwe: The Exhaustion of the Patriarchal Model of Liberation; Pan Africanism, Pan Africanists and African Liberation in the 21st Century; and Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics. Follow on Twitter @Horace_Campbell.

Friday, October 22, 2010

One Nation March on Washington DC: 2 October 2010

MARCHING OR MOBILISING

On 2 October 2010, around 175,000 people from over 300 different organisations gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC and the Washington Mall to hear speeches by numerous leaders on the theme of ‘One nation: working together for jobs, peace, education and justice.’ Comprising traditional labour, civil rights, peace, education, environment and GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual) groups, these groups were making their statement about the need for a society that places human beings ahead of profits. Speaker after speaker decried the ‘massive tax giveaways to the rich when 50 per cent of our children are living in poverty’. There were signs all over the mall calling for the arrest and ‘locking up the Wall Street crooks’. As one of the marchers who listened to the four-and-half hours of speeches, I would like to say that the most significant aspect of this march was its positive and inclusive character. There were blacks and whites, young and old, gay and straight, workers and students, unwaged and wage earners, Latinos and Asians, and citizens from all walks of life. In fact, what was striking about this inclusiveness was that it reflected the multinational and the multiethnic character of the US. The multiethnic composition of the marchers did in fact conceptually render the theme of the march contradictory to the character of the march ... Read more